Selected Prose of Heinrich Von Kleist
black man in a fury; following a second shot that pierced the shoulder of a servant, Hoango was wounded in the hand by the slash of a saber, and the two of them, Babekan and he, were shoved to the floor and bound tightly with ropes to the trestle of a big table. Awakened in the meantime by the sound of shots, Hoango’s Negroes, more than twenty in number, staggered out of their stalls, and hearing old Babekan screaming in the house, came running to get their weapons. Monsieur Strömli, whose wound was of no significance, stationed his people at the windows and had them fire, attempting in vain to hold off the onslaught; oblivious to the fact that two of their number already lay dead in the yard, the Negroes were just then fetching axes and crowbars to break open the door that Monsieur Strömli had bolted shut, when shaking and trembling, Toni burst into Hoango’s room with Seppy in her arms. Monsieur Strömli, who found their arrival most fortuitous, tore the boy from Toni’s arms; drawing his hunting knife, he turned to Hoango and swore to kill the boy on the spot if Hoangodid not call out to his men to cease and desist. After a moment’s hesitation, Hoango, whose grip was broken by the blow of the blade on three fingers of his fighting hand, and who, if he chose to resist, would have forfeited his own life, motioned for them to raise him off the floor, muttering: “Alright.” Led by Monsieur Strömli to the window, and waving with a handkerchief in his left hand, Hoango called to the Negroes: “It’s no use, leave the door and return to your quarters!” Whereupon things quieted down a bit; on Monsieur Strömli’s bidding, Hoango sent one of the Negro guards captured in the house out to repeat the order to the hesitant, arguing stragglers remaining in the yard; and as little as they grasped of the situation, they were obliged to heed the words of this delegated messenger, and so the blacks gave up their attempt to break open the door, and one by one returned, albeit grumbling and cursing, to their quarters. Ordering Seppy’s hands to be bound then and there in front of his father, Monsieur Strömli said: “My intention is none other than to set free the officer, my nephew, and if we encounter no further obstacles along the way and succeed in safely making our escape to Port au Prince, you will have nothing to fear for your own life and that of your children, whom I will return to you forthwith.” Toni approached Babekan to bid farewell, reaching her hand out to her mother with a burst of emotion she could not suppress, but the old woman shoved her away. She called her daughter a contemptible traitress, and twisting on the trestle, hissed: “God’s wrath will mow you down before you manage to bring off your filthy deed!” Toni replied: “I did not betray you; I am a white woman, and betrothed to the young man you hold captive; I belong to the race of those with whom you are at war, and will answer to God alone for taking theirside.” Hereupon Monsieur Strömli had one of his men stand guard beside Hoango, whom he had bound again and tied to the doorpost; he had the servant, who lay unconscious on the floor with a broken shoulder blade, picked up and carried out; and after repeating to Hoango that he could send for both boys, Nanky and Seppy, in a few days time at the French outpost in Sainte Luce, he turned to Toni, who, overcome by mixed emotions, could not stop crying, heaped as she was with the curses of Babekan and old Hoango, took her hand and led her out of the room.
    In the meantime, having finished the main fight, firing from the windows, Monsieur Strömli’s sons, Adelbert and Gottfried, hastened, on their father’s orders, to the room in which their cousin Gustav was being held prisoner, and managed, despite stiff resistance, to overwhelm the two blacks who guarded him. One of them lay dead on the floor of the room; the

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